Azarenka, Serena power through second round

Defending champion Victoria Azarenka romped into the Australian Open third round Thursday with a comprehensive straight-sets thrashing of Greek Eleni Daniilidou.

The world number one Belarusian lost just one game in the 6-1, 6-0 demolition and will next play either American Jamie Hampton or Thai qualifier Luksika Kumkhum.

The victory keeps top-seeded Azarenka on course to meet former world number one Caroline Wozniacki in the quarter-finals as she defends her first grand slam title.

Meanwhile third seed Serena Williams brushed aside any injury worries to advance with a straight-sets defeat of Garbine Muguruza.

The 15-time grand slam winner, gunning for a sixth Australian title, rolled her ankle on Tuesday but was moving freely in the 6-2, 6-0 defeat of the Spaniard, and next plays Japan's Ayumi Morita.

The injury clearly restricted Williams' movement and she shifted a scheduled training session from court 17 to the indoor facility at Melbourne Park away from prying eyes on Wednesday, fuelling speculation about the injury.

But the American, who has admitted she is eyeing the first calendar-year Grand Slam since 1988, showed little sign of the problem in her workout against Muguruza, although the ankle was heavily strapped.

Williams had never before played the 112th-ranked Spaniard, who was making her tournament debut, and she raced to a 2-0 lead before some uncharacteristic forehand errors allowed Muguruza to hold servce and get off the mark.

The American was not at her best and even hit herself in the face with her racquet in the sixth game as she went for a lob at full stretch, spending the next game dabbing at her lip.

But she rallied to break once more for 5-2 and held for the set.

The second set opened with a marathon 18-minute game, with Williams finally prevailing to break. Any fight left in the Spaniard disappeared with the American taking only 19 more minutes to reel off the last five games.

Williams says there was no discomfort with her ankle.

"I didn't feel anything today," she said.

"Obviously when you go out to play you're heavy on adrenaline and you're really pumped up.

"Usually I feel injuries after the match, but so far, so good. I felt pretty, much better than I ever dreamed of expecting to feel."

Fast start

Azarenka had only played the Greek once before, five years ago, and lost, but on a scorching hot day on Rod Laver Arena she opened her account with a serve to love then comfortably held, with the signs ominous for Daniilidou.

The Belarusian easily broke again then held for 4-0, with the Greek still then having won just three points in the entire match.

Azarenka's key rivals, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, have both scored double bagel whitewashes here and Azarenka looked intent on producing her own until Daniilidou finally won a game for 5-1, to big cheers.

But it was only a hiccup for Azarenka, and with her renowned grunting growing in volume and shouts of "c'mon" becoming more regular, the pumped-up top seed raced through the second set in 31 minutes.

While Azarenka is the world's top-ranked player, Sharapova and Williams are breathing down her neck and she needs to reach the final to have any chance of remaining number one.

Evergreen Kimiko Date-Krumm of Japan, who made her Melbourne Park debut 23 years ago, reached the third round with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Shahar Peer of Israel.

Enjoying a huge following with her age defying feats Date-Krumm now plays either Lucie Safarova or Bojana Jovanovski.

The 42-year-old beat Pam Shriver in her Australian Open debut in 1990 and four years later reached the semi-finals against Steffi Graf

In other results Japan's Ayumi Morita had an equally easy time against German opponent Annika Beck, winning 6-2, 6-0 in an hour and a quarter, while Italian 16th seed Roberta Vinci downed Uzbek Akgul Amanmuradova 6-3, 6-2.